50 Years Ago This Week: Led Zeppelin's First Jam

posted by Kenny Young -
Aug 13, 2018

via Variety On the hot summer evening of August 12, 1968, Jimmy Page assembled his "New Yardbirds" lineup for the first time to jam. Zeppelin's Official Website recounts the first song the four, young artists ever played together:

John Paul Jones: "We first played together in a small room on Gerrard Street, a basement room, which is now Chinatown. There was just wall-to-wall amplifiers, and a space for the door - and that was it. Literally, it was everyone looking at each other - 'what shall we play?' Me doing more sessions, didn't know anything at all. There was an old Yardbirds' number calledTrain Kept a Rollin'... The whole room just exploded.

Axemaster General and founder Page said of that first night together: "At the end, we knew that it was really happening, really electrifying. We went from there to start rehearsals for the album.”

Things took off quickly from there for these pros. A short run of Scandinavian shows were booked a few weeks later followed by their first U.K. show on Oct. 4 at The Marquee Club. They would change their name, officially, to Led Zeppelin by the end of the month, signed with Atlantic in November, launched its first U.S. tour on Dec. 26 and released the album in January.